The Saloon

Image by Paul C Lee from Pixabay

"Four nanoseconds." Znn sipped their wine. In four hundred years they'd never developed a taste for whiskey.

We sat at our usual table in my saloon, watching yet another saddle-sore cowboy tie up his horse in front of the trough before stepping inside. He was looking for a fight. The prospector rose to oblige him.

"That's all it took. Did you know humans blink, on average, once every three seconds? That's three billion nanoseconds to blink and only four for Earth's entire developmental trajectory to stop."

This was old ground—Znn wearing their guilt. I let them talk.

"Do you remember when we arrived?"

They hadn't brought that up in at least twenty years. "What's this about, Znn?" I asked.

"Nothing. Do you?"

It was never nothing, but I let it pass. "Of course, I do. I was there."

Even if I hadn't remembered, the vids the invaders had taken of the occasion were available for public consumption. The story starts before then, though. It starts in Znn's observatory in a universe and galaxy with names made up of an unpronounceable combination of consonants.

They just happened to have their scope recording the exact sector of space where the rip happened. In four nanoseconds a tear opened between their universe and ours. That rip split space in the Orion Arm of the Milky way, right in our neighborhood.

Of course, we monkeys didn't notice. We were too busy colonizing the shit out of our tiny little world, oblivious to the existence of other universes. While we continued on our merry way, believing ourselves the top of the food chain, the Stzzt watched. They found us primitives fascinating.

They first openly visited on June 3, 1880. Znn said the time was right. I think they just liked cowboys. They sent invisible drones down to record the landings, all over the world. They do like a spectacle.

It was a quiet evening at the saloon. No one itching for a fight. Even though I was a woman, I owned it. Daddy had died of snakebite a few years back and left it to me. I had plenty offers of marriage, but I didn't need some man to take what was rightfully mine.

The sheriff had invited his cronies to spend the evening playing poker. They took up a table in front of the big front window. Other locals sat at the bar and a few scattered tables.

I was pouring whiskey when the noise started, like the thundering of horse hooves. Only it got louder and when I looked out the window, a structure as big as a barn lit the night sky with flashing lights in every color.

The men folk crowded around the window, pointing and shouting as the barn-thing settled neat as you please into the middle of main street, barely kicking up any dust.

Those big, tough men cowered inside, fearful it was the Devil come to get them for their sins. I didn't care if it was Satan or the second coming. I'd fought for this saloon, and I'd be damned if even Satan was going to take it from me—or me from it.

I grabbed my trusty six-shooter from behind the bar and threw back a shot of whiskey for courage. I headed for the door, long skirts sweeping the floor.

Jeb, white as a ghost, grabbed my arm as I passed. "You can't go out there, Flo."

I stared at his hand. "If you were more of a man, I wouldn't have to." I gripped my gun in my right hand and, pulling free of his grip, marched out the door before I lost my nerve.

When I looked back, Jeb stood in the open doorway, though he didn't step off the porch. Shaking my head, I fixed my eyes on the barn. Only it wasn't a barn. Smooth and rounded, nothing seemed to mar its surface, which had stopped shooting out colors and now shone silver.

A crack appeared in the thing near the bottom, then widened into a hole big enough to take ten horses, side to side. My heart tried to gallop out of there, but my legs refused. This was it; I was going to die right here, right now.

I raised my gun as someone stepped out of the hole, right into the air. My hands shook so hard I didn't think I could aim it, let alone shoot. And then, somehow, my gun was in its holster, though I was sure I hadn't moved.

The strangest looking cowboy I'd ever seen floated from the ship to the ground like gravity didn't exist. I couldn't run or even scream. Something had frozen me in place. A bright red face with three glowing, orange eyes looked out from under a brown Stetson. Three legs filled bizarre trousers, ending in three spurred boots. Maybe the Devil really had come for us. I sent a silent prayer of thanks Daddy hadn't lived to see this.

My hand came up of its own volition to take the four fingered hand extended to me. The cowboy smiled. "Howdy. My name is Znn."

I looked into their face now. They had always wondered if their people had been right to stop human history in its tracks. They had turned our world into a tourist attraction. Aliens came from all over to play cowboy or aristocrat.

Of course, they had also built huge underground cities where Earthers lived when not playing host to tourists.

"Why are you bringing it up again?" I asked.

"There's been another rip."

I froze, whiskey halfway to my lips. "Where?"

"Another Earth. One that developed without interference."

"And?"

"It's dead. Filled with pollution and radioactive waste."

Yes, the Stzzt had stopped normal human development, but maybe they had saved us as well. Maybe this would ease Znn's guilt. I threw back my whiskey and went to break up the fight.

---

After queuing up my alien-dog story for publication, I started thinking about this story, which I wrote for a contest a few years back. The idea was to combine a Western with Science Fiction. The result was this story. I didn’t win, and can’t believe I haven’t already published this on Substack. I hope you enjoyed it!